Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXVI

College football will be here again before we know it IS HERE, so I've got to get my prize from last season's Bowl Pick 'Em contest at Cards on Cards posted! My prize for a second place tie was a very generously sized box of cards, so I felt a bit overwhelmed even sorting through them. I finally sorted them out by player, and, as usual, I'll plan to post them all eventually, but I might quit halfway through, we'll see.

Part I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X
XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX
XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV

We're just about into Bowl Season again. Will I get these done anytime soon?

1986 Topps Traded #82T Jose Oquendo
1990 Sportflics #85 Jose Oquendo
1991 Topps Stadium Club #190 Jose Oquendo
1991 Topps Stadium Club #366 Felix Jose
1991 Topps Stadium Club #481 Jamie Moyer
1992 Donruss - Diamond Kings #DK-13 Felix Jose

St. Louis was Jamie Moyer's 3rd team, and yet he retired 21 years after he left the Cardinals.

1992 Fleer - All Stars #1 Felix Jose
1996 Donruss #87 Brian Jordan
1996 Donruss #153 Tripp Cromer
1996 Donruss #234 Jose Oquendo
1996 Donruss #282 Mike Morgan
1996 Pacific #228 Jose Oquendo

I got a nice handful of Felix Jose and Jose Oquendo cards, among others. Both of them were on the 1992 team which was the first I ever watched. Oquendo had a long coaching career with the Cardinals as well, but has opted to just be a spring training instructor for now. He's no Hall of Famer, but I think the Cardinals should retire #11 for him, for combined playing and coaching contributions to the team.

Zistle Trade #26, Part II

[Part I]

This half of the trade has a lot more Ozzies.

1982 Fleer #582 Ozzie Smith
1983 Topps #24 Steve Mura
1983 Topps #74 Julio Gonzalez
1983 Topps #650 George Hendrick
1990 Donruss #663 Rick Reuschel
1990 Donruss - Bonus MVP's #BC-14 Julio Franco
1990 Score #220A Mike Aldrete
1990 Score #662 Paul Coleman
1992 Donruss #423 Ozzie Smith

I'm continuing to chip away at 1990 Donruss, and I'm down to error variations for the most part. This Rick Reuschel card is the corrected version. Donruss printed a bunch of the all star cards with All Star stats but with a header implying they were regular stats, and the corrected versions say All-Star stats. It's a subtle and mostly meaningless difference, but I figure, the cards aren't rare, so why not track them all down? Mike Aldrete's card is another error card, which says he's #25 on the back. As you can see from the photo, he was #24. Mike was the assistant hitting coach and then bench coach for the Cardinals a few years ago, so I've decided to collect his cards even though he never played for St. Louis.

The big cards from this trade are at the top of that scan, though, a nice 1982 Ozzie Smith, and 3 1983 Topps Cardinals. I collected every Ozzie Topps flagship base card many years ago, but it's good to start filling in the other brands.

Also, I was sure I've posted a Paul Coleman card before, but I don't have any post tagged with his name. He might be one of the Cardinals worst draft decisions. They chose him one pick ahead of Frank Thomas, yet he never made it to the majors.

1993 Leaf #229 Brian Jordan
1993 Leaf #297 Ray Lankford
1993 Leaf #328 Ozzie Smith
2013 Topps - 1972 Topps Mini #TM-99 Ozzie Smith

I really like these 1993 Leaf cards, so I'm not sure why I didn't have them yet. Now, I do. I was also glad to get a one of the modern Ozzie inserts, the 1972-style mini from 2013 Topps.

Zistle Trade #23

This Zistle trade was mostly from the junk wax era, but I haven't quite filled all those gaps in my collection, so there's a smattering of them on my want list. Oddly enough, my trading partner wanted some "junk" in return, so I figured, why not. I'm too lazy to look it up now, but I think it was mostly 89 or 91 Donruss.

1988 Topps #642 Bob Dernier
1990 Score #233 Ken Hill
1991 Fleer #633 Bernard Gilkey
1991 Fleer #636 Felix Jose
1991 Fleer #640 Jose Oquendo
1991 Fleer #645 Lee Smith
1991 Topps #112 Frank DiPino
1992 Fleer #589 Gerald Perry
1992 Score #544 Bernard Gilkey

One of these things is not like the others, and that is Bobby Dernier. The others are all Cardinals, and actually mostly guys I remember playing for the team during my childhood, except for Frank DiPino. As for Bobby, I added that to my list awhile back because he was the favorite player of a good friend of mine when he was growing up. I was looking through my collection for a card of his to perhaps try to get autographed through the mail, but I didn't have any, and thus I added a few I should be able to get cheaply to my want list. Now I just need to track down an address for Mr. Dernier, or figure out who he's working for.

1992 Donruss #427 Bobby Bonilla
1992 Donruss #442 John Smoltz
1992 Donruss #564 Deion Sanders
1992 Donruss #610 Bobby Bonilla

I recently purchased a 1992 Donruss Series 1 set, which actually quashed the first trade this particular trader proposed to me. He did it the day after I bought the set, before I thought to remove the series 1 cards from my want list. Luckily my oversight didn't frustrate him, and we worked out a deal removing those cards. Here are the series 2 cards I still needed. If you're not a Cardinals fan, you may have forgotten that Smoltz and Bonilla both finished their careers in St. Louis. It wasn't very long for either one, but I still consider them players I collect. I've waffled about whether I should start collecting Deion Sanders cards. He'd go well with my other two-sport-star collection target, Bo Jackson. He was also a part of the very first baseball game I ever attended. I'll probably complete this base set eventually anyway, so I went ahead and added it to my wantlist, and now I have it.

Zistle Trade #20

I've now successfully completed 20 trades on Zistle, and this one was with a frequent trading partner, who seems to be a Marlins collector for the most part. Every time I add some relatively common cards to my want list, he's usually got a trade for me within a few weeks. I'm certain most of these were added recently, especially the 1993 Studio cards I added when I got the Gregg Jefferies in my last trade.

1993 Studio #45 Scott Cooper
1993 Studio #62 Todd Zeile
1993 Studio #88 Ron Gant
1992 Donruss #334 Heathcliff Slocumb
1993 Bowman #111 Todd Stottlemyre
1995 Topps #635 Steve Kline / Herb Perry

I like these Studio cards, but I really started collecting Studio in 1997. I liked the design that year and bought a whole box, which was tough to do on the budget of a teenager. Those cards made me appreciate the Studio brand, so through the years I've sought out at least the Cardinals from other years, including those not pictured on the team, as I always do.

The other 3 cards also feature out-of-uniform Cardinals, including rookie cards for Heathcliff Slocumb, who played part of 1999 with the team, and Steve Kline, who played here 2001-2004, and was the league leader in appearances each season 1999-2001. Then there's my long lost cousin, Todd Stottlemyre. I always forget the exact relationship; I think technically it's 2nd cousin once removed. Now I've got to call my mom and maybe grandma tomorrow to sort this out.

Junior Junkie's Generosity, Part V

Part I II III IV


I've got a lot of McGwires to go through. I'm nowhere near the St. Louis years yet.

1990 Starline Long John Silvers #9 Mark McGwire
1990 Starline Long John Silvers #11 Mark McGwire (x2)
1990 Kmart #32 Mark McGwire
1991 Donruss - Bonus Cards #BC-9 Mark McGwire
1991 Score 100 Superstars #39 Mark McGwire
1991 Score #324 Mark McGwire (x3)

I think those Green-Bordered cards were some sort of Long John Silvers giveaway, from some searching around the web.

1991 Upper Deck #174 Mark McGwire
1992 Donruss #348 Mark McGwire
1992 Fleer Ultra #115 Mark McGwire (x2)
1992 Pinnacle #217 Mark McGwire
1992 Upper Deck Fanfest #32 Mark McGwire

The 1992 Upper Deck FanFest set is another new one for me. It's increasingly rare for me to get a card from a set I don't already have cards from, but that one and the Starline cards were both new sets to my collection.

Junior Junkie's Generosity, Part II

Part I

Next up from Junior Junkie: More Bo Jackson.

1990 Stadium News #BJ Bo Jackson
1991 Topps #600 Bo Jackson
1991 Upper Deck #545 Bo Jackson
1991 Upper Deck #744 Bo Jackson
1992 Donruss #470 Bo Jackson
1992 Score #361 Bo Jackson

That first card has no copyright notice on it, but 1989 Stats, so I assumed it was a 1990. A reverse Google image search led me to find that the set is called Stadium News, which I should have assumed, and I found several other cards from the set in Zistle.

1992 Topps #290 Bo Jackson
1992 Triple Play #164 Bo Jackson
1992 Upper Deck #555 Bo Jackson
1993 Leaf #316 Bo Jackson
1993 Topps #400 Bo Jackson
1994 Sportflics 2000 Rookie/Traded #150 Bo Jackson

These cards have brought me to a decision. I must find a black White Sox jersey T-shirt with Jackson #8 on it.

Zistle Trade #18

It seems like anytime I accept a trade on Zistle, one or two more offers come right away, so here's my second trade post this week. I got the higher volume on this trade, sending just two Mike (pre-Giancarlo) Stanton cards for these 10. Looking at the names in the trade offer, I was expecting to see a bunch of Cardinals, but in 1992, only Jose Oquendo was on the team. The rest became Cardinals later in their careers, except Lance Johnson who started in St. Louis

1992 Donruss
#259 Larry Walker
#267 Lance Johnson
#269 Rick Honeycutt
#277 Delino DeShields
#280 Jose Oquendo
#295 Jeff Brantley

In the background of Jose Oquendo's card, there are clearly two more Cardinals, Andres Galaragga and Ozzie Smith

1992 Donruss
#296 Les Lancaster
#314 Mike Gallego
#325 Mark Whiten
#372 Gregg Jefferies

These are the first cards I've posted of Les Lancaster, Mike Gallego, and Rick Honeycutt, by my reckoning.

It's fun to see a group of cards like this, all with players who were Cardinals, but on lots of different teams. My style of collecting means my "team set" completion takes a bit longer, but the result is more complete, too. I've still got 31 cards on my want list from 1992 Donruss.

Zistle Trade #16 Part II

My Zistle trading binge continues, and this time I got enough Cardinals that I had to split into two posts just to tag them all. In return, I sent off some 2011 Topps Lineage cards, several of which were triples and quadruples, because I bought several discounted packs and blasters of that set.

Part I

1983 Fleer #613 Gary Gaetti
1990 Upper Deck
#225 Ozzie Smith
#278 Milt Thompson
1992 Donruss
#116 Kent Mercker
#163 Brian Hunter
#208 Tony Pena
#424 Chris Sabo
1993 Hostess
#18 Andres Galarraga
#25 Ken Griffey, Jr.

Since I made these trades at the same time, I wound up trading for the Chris Sabo card twice. But, I'm not too upset about it. The main draw in this trade was the Hostess cards. I'm not sure how many Hostess Baseballs I ate in the summer of 1993, but I feel like it was on the order of dozens. Before these two, I had 25 unique cards from the set, and 9 duplicates. A quick blog search indicates I've received 4 in trade, and sent off a few, so that probably means I got at least 30 from eating the baseball cakes. Most importantly, I now need only 5 more to finish the set.

I found it surprising that these are the first cards I'm posting of Andres Galarraga, Brian Hunter, and Kent Mercker. I'd especially expect a card of Galarraga to have come up by now.

Another nice card in the trade is the Gary Gaetti rookie card. He first played a few games in the majors in 1981, and in an era before the modern Bowman, he didn't get a rookie card until he completed his first full season in 1982.

Zistle Trade #14

My trading partner today wanted just one card, a 2011 Opening Day Mike Stanton base card. He's doing quite well right now, so I sold high (I think) for a collection of 1992 Donruss Cardinals.

1992 Donruss
#397 Royce Clayton
#424 Chris Sabo
#428 Will Clark
#481 Omar Olivares
#533 Geronimo Pena
#553 Rich Gedman
#570 Scott Cooper

I've still got 44 cards on my wantlist for this set, of which 43 are Cardinals and one is Deion Sanders, just because. Of course many are like these Chris Sabo and Will Clark cards, playing in other uniforms. There are a good number of them among the 188 cards of this base set I have, too. Free Agency keeps my collecting net wide enough that I'll probably never finish my want list.

Donuts from Johnny's Trading Spot, Part III

Several weeks ago, I read a post at Johnny's Trading Spot titled Instant mini collections up for grabs. "Up for Grabs" always gets my attention, so I threw my name into the mix. They were supposed to be randomly assigned, but through a lucky draw and one trade, each of the winners wound up with exactly what they originally wanted most. For me, that was cards with batting donuts.

Part I II

It's a busy week for me. So, let's just see some more donuts, featuring 3 Cardinals this time, though all in other uniforms.

1991 Topps
#139 Jeff Treadway
#604 Billy Hatcher
#726 Phil Stephenson
#781 Darryl Hamilton
1991 Fleer #75 Joe Oliver
1991 Upper Deck
#3 D. J. Dozier
#291 Joey Cora
#340 Larry Sheets
#502 Bob Boone

Bob Boone doesn't look nearly old enough on this 1991 card to be the father of Bret Boone, on the 1992 card below.

1991 Upper Deck
#560 Chris Gwynn
#675 Hensley Meulens
#754 Tony Fernandez
1992 Upper Deck
#121 Hal Morris
#327 Kevin Seitzer
#771 Bret Boone
#737 Dan Gladden
1992 Topps
#333 Pat Tabler
#647 Marquis Grissom

1991 Donruss
#80 Kevin Reimer
#109 Ken Oberkfell
#253 Glenn Braggs
#255 Kevin Mitchell
#445 Kirk Gibson
#530 John Olerud
1992 Donruss #759 Dave Anderson
1992 Triple Play #24 Reggie Jefferson
1992 Fleer Ultra #279 Thomas Howard

Ken Oberkfell and Thomas Howard are the two Cardinals in this bunch, along with Royce Clayton below. The Howard card has a sneaky donut on it, on the bat of the player on deck.

1992 Leaf #272 Royce Clayton

Tis The Season Winnings, Part IV

Sometimes, I procrastinate posting and sorting some cards. Normally I don't pay too much attention to how long a particular item has been sitting on my desk, but given that this one was the Tis the Season contest from 2013, I've probably had it in my possession for a little over a year now. But, even with the long delay, I still want to throw Jeff at 2 by 3 Heroes some referral traffic while I show off my prize.
Part I II III

Today I've got some more of the miscellaneous Cardinals, Red Sox, and Yankees from the prize package.

1990 Donruss #82 Milt Thompson
1990 Leaf #499 Greg Harris
1991 Topps - All Stars #16 Ozzie Smith
1992 Fleer #44 Phil Plantier
1992 Donruss #628 Greg Cadaret
1992 Donruss Rookies #34 Mike Draper

The Topps Glossy All Stars are definitely cards I should have in my collection, so this Ozzie along with yesterday's Vince Coleman were good additions. Guys like Phil Plantier are the reason I always look up players before assuming they weren't Cardinals. He apparently played for the Cardinals in the second half of 1997, coming over in the trade for Fernando Valenzuela. He played in the outfield in 32 games, and yet I had no memory of him.

1990 Topps #206 Nick Esasky
1990 Topps #409 Tom Brunansky
1990 Upper Deck #191 Don Mattingly
1990 Upper Deck #782 Billy Jo Robidoux
1992 Fleer Ultra #12 Tom Brunansky
1992 Fleer Ultra #15 Roger Clemens

Not only did I get two different Tom Brunansky cards, but as Red Sox and Yankees go, Clemens and Mattingly are two all time greats. A few years ago, I figured Mattingly would continue climbing up the Hall of Fame balloting and eventually make it in, but he's finally officially off the ballot. I suspect Clemens will eventually make it, once the fervor over PEDs dies down a bit, which may already be starting to happen now that Andy Pettitte is getting his number retired with the Yankees.

eBay Wins #149

My last eBay lot was the end of 1991, so naturally I'm on to 1992, the year I started collecting. I actually began with Topps, but I believe I bought some of these Donruss cards that year too.

1992 Donruss
#434 Bret Saberhagen
#559 Darryl Strawberry
#583 Kevin Mitchell

I've mentioned the idea before, but seeing these 3 cards makes me really want to start a collection for all players appearing in RBI Baseball. Maybe once I start running short of Cardinals, I'll make the remaining non-Cardinals among those 160 guys the next priority.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3238
Total Spent	$50.88
Per Card	1.571 cents
Change	-0.001 cents

eBay Wins #50

This win is actually from two auctions. A seller had a bunch of 1992 Donruss team sets, and I won two of them at 19 cents each for 15 cards each.  Since I started collecting in 1992, but definitely saw Topps as the best card company, these cards used to represent some kind of "Evil Empire" to me, by their very existence. It's funny how things can turn around in 20 years; I'd love to see some Donruss out there now in addition to Topps. Let's see which Phillies and Blue Jays had cards in '92.

1992 Donruss
#8 Eddie Zosky
#11 Andy Ashby
#28 Roberto Alomar
#57 Lenny Dykstra
#58 Roberto Alomar
#65 Kelly Gruber

Two Hall-of-Fame cards in the first bunch, though they're both Roberto Alomar.

1992 Donruss
#76 Pat Combs
#92 John Morris
#94 Tommy Greene
#98 John Olerud
#109 Tommy Greene
#141 Tom Henke

This bunch has a duplicate player again, Tommy Greene's base card, and one commemorating his No-Hitter. There are also the first two former cardinals, in John Morris and Tom Henke.

1992 Donruss
#146 Dale Murphy
#179 Randy Ready
#180 Devon White
#187 Ed Sprague
#198 Darren Daulton
#219 Jimmy Key

I only recently learned that Dale Murphy played anywhere but Atlanta. I think of him as a player from the 70s and 80s, but apparently he even played a year for the Rockies in 1993. Speaking of learning, thanks to Donruss's policy of putting full names on the back, I learned that Randy Ready, whose name already makes him sound like a superhero, has an action-hero middle name too: Max. Randy Max Ready. Tell me that's not the hero in a cheap SyFy movie.

1992 Donruss
#230 John Kruk
#263 Todd Stottlemyre
#268 Terry Mulholland
#274 Rene Gonzales
#300 Jose DeJesus
#301 Mike Timlin

I think John Kruk was one of my favorite players when I started watching baseball in 1992. He seemed to have a big personality. It probably didn't hurt that as a kid I was carrying a few extra pounds and could identify with him a bit more. Next to him is one of my current favorite players, Todd Stottlemyre. Mike Timlin, on the bottom right, was also a former Cardinal.

1992 Donruss
#308 Duane Ward
#319 Darrin Fletcher
#342 Greg Myers
#353 Mitch Williams
#379 Pat Borders
#384 Wes Chamberlain

The last group features 3 catchers, showing a nice juxtaposition of different ways their cards can be executed. I think Darrin Fletcher is the best of the 3, having an action shot in full gear. I don't know much about Pat Borders, except that he served as Tom Pagnozzi's backup for about half of 1996 on the Cardinals, but unless he was known as a big power hitter (or even a high-average hitter), the batting pose seems like a wasted opportunity. Finally there's Greg Myers, who was just walking around and a lazy photographer asked him to squat. He's got a forward cap, no gear, and is in grass. That's no way to do a catcher card, Donruss.

Despite that Greg Myers pose, this seemed like pretty good purchase. After all, Toronto won the World Series in 1992 and 1993, and most of these Phillies helped them to win the NL in 1993.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2064
Total Spent	$39.13
Per Card	1.896 cents

A Rookie Contest Win, Part 2

[Part 1]

In Mid-June I won a contest at all the way to backstop by going 3 for 3 in guessing the Rookie cards in his big stack. My prize: the stack, and some other cool stuff he picked out for me.

I can tell my wantlist was well-searched, because I also received 7 cards of one of my favorite players, and a distant cousin, Todd Stottlemyre.

1991 Score #39 Todd Stottlemyre

1992 Donruss #263 Todd Stottlemyre

1992 Fleer #342 Todd Stottlemyre

1992 Pinnacle #240 Todd Stottlemyre

1992 Fleer Ultra #153 Todd Stottlemyre

1993 Fleer Ultra #293 Todd Stottlemyre

1994 Collector's Choice #269 Todd Stottlemyre 

Also from my wantlist, 1993 Topps Gold cards. And some base cards to boot.

1993 Topps #425 Joe Girardi

I've gotta show former Cardinals, no matter how brief a stint they had in St. Louis. Here are the rest of the base cards:

425 Joe Girardi
562 Bob Zupcic
598 Rico Brogna
606 J. Owens
613 Joel Adamson
622 Ben Rivera
699 Chad Curtis
732 Travis Buckley
747 Carl Willis
773 Cliff Brantley
790 George Bell

1993 Topps - Gold #483 Brian Griffiths

Not to be confused with Brian Griffin

1993 Topps - Gold #787 Mike Matthews

I'm trying to complete a set of 1992 and 1993 Topps Gold, and maybe 1994 as well. I haven't organized them all into my have and want list, but I don't have too many so there's a good chance any I get are unique for now, and a quick check of my "to enter in Zistle" box says these two bring me 2 cards closer to the 825 card set.

Once again, thanks to all the way to the backstop for the great cards.

eBay Wins #23

I was feeling random, so I bid on and won 62 "Random 1990s" cards, most of which were from the 1980s, so all the better. Most of the cards are commons of course, but there were a few Cardinals and stars as well.

1983 Fleer #596Charlie Leibrandt

The lone 83 Fleer in the bunch.

1986 Topps #422 Mike Jorgensen

9 years later Mike would take over for a fired Joe Torre as Cardinals manager long enough for us to bring in Tony LaRussa for the next season.

1986 Topps
24 Len Barker
66 Cardinals Leaders (2)
112 Bill Campbell
114 Mike Brown
134 Carney Lansford
140 John Candelaria
150 Joaquin Andujar
161 Lee Tunnell
167 Zane Smith
216 A's Leaders
252 Bobby Castillo
304 Mike Gallego
404 Frank Robinson
422 Mike Jorgensen
433 Chris Codiroli
437 Rick Mahler
439 Rick Honeycutt
543 Jerry Narron
549 Bob Welch
566 Alfredo Griffin
583 Al Bumbry
602 Mariano Duncan (2)
731 Don Robinson
758 Dave Anderson
766 Rick Langford

1988 Topps #170 Rich Gossage

Hey look, a Hall-of-Famer. Junk wax or not, that's cool.

1988 Topps
170 Rich Gossage
564 Frank Lucchesi

1989 Donruss #119 Bert Blyleven

Another (recent) Hall-of-Famer.

1989 Donruss
47 Alex Sanchez
85 Frank White
102 Dave Martinez
109 Henry Cotto
110 Mike Marshall
114 Brook Jacoby
115 Keith Brown
119 Bert Blyleven
121 Tommy Gregg
125 Eric Plunk
131 Jose Uribe
318 Greg Gagne
336 Randy Myers
430 Bob Dernier
447 Glenn Wilson
492 Willie Upshaw
499 Zane Smith
568 Glenn Hubbard
575 Juan Nieves
578 Luis Rivera

1991 Fleer Joe Oliver

The streak had to end sometime. Here's the lone bright yellow 91 Fleer.

1991 Score #164 Jeff Reardon

1991 Score
151 Roy Smith
162 Brook Jacoby
164 Jeff Reardon
167 Gary Mielke

1992 Donruss #376 Bernard Gilkey

I don't remember much of Bernard Gilkey as a Cardinals player, as he never seemed to stand out much. He was a local guy though, and a consistent starter.

1992 Donruss
164 Alan Trammell
347 Dante Bichette
353 Mitch Williams
359 Scott Leius
365 Vicente Palacios
370 Pat Kelly
376 Bernard Gilkey

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	1885
Total Spent	$34.91
Per Card	1.85 cents